


But a Caged Bird Stands on the Grave of Dreams

by alexavindr (orphan_account)



Series: Caged Bird [2]
Category: Captain America - (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angry Erik, Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Canon, Temporary Character Death, because why not, mentions of Ruth Eisenhardt, not so smol child erik
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5797462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/alexavindr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all over the news. </p><p><b><i>CAPTAIN AMERICA DISAPPEARS - JAMES "BUCKY" BARNES PRESUMED DEAD</i></b>.</p><p>Erik feels sixteen again in the corner of Herr Doktor's office.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But a Caged Bird Stands on the Grave of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> OH MY MOTHER-FUDGING POPSICLE STICKS HOW DID THIS GET SO MUCH ATTENTION?! For someone whose only other work has been hovering around 150 hits, this has been a truly incredible ride. 
> 
> The title is also from Caged Bird by Maya Angelou. It's kind of a trend.
> 
> So before I go to Charles and his adorkableness I was like: Hey! I think suffering is much needed and almost completely necessary...so I created this monstrosity. enjoy readers

It's all over the news. In the newspapers, on posters, rolling off of people's tongues in various languages. _**Captain America Vanishes,** _ the head-line declares in bold letters, _**James "Bucky" Barnes Presumed Dead.**_ Erik can't stand it. All of a sudden he feels like the sixteen-year old mutant who had accepted death in the corner of Herr Doktor's office. Dirty, scarred, horrified and weak.

No one ever heard of Captain America saving a young boy with strange abilities. Maybe that is for the best, Erik thinks. It's not exactly like the world is ready to hear such a thing. Instead, it is hidden among bigger, brighter happenings, like the end of the war, the suicide of Adolf Hitler. It's also lost in the tumble of tragic news, of Captain America's mysterious disappearance and the Howling Commandos' only K.I.A. Erik feels alone like never before, even if he'd only known them for such a short amount of time.

He was sent to America, where he was nursed back to health and pampered by kind American nurses who taught him English and even a small amount of Spanish. They were like sisters, or aunts. However, Erik isn't sure they'd have treated him the way the did if they had known he was a mutant. He is almost certain they wouldn't have.

That was almost two years ago.

Now he is in Britain, searching for a former Nazi who had been affiliated with Klaus Schmidt, which was what Erik found Herr Doktor's name to actually be. He had many more, Erik knew. Along the way he'd found more, more people who'd helped in the attempted and almost successful genocide, more of the men who had aided in his mother's death, a crime for which no one will ever be forgiven, no matter how much they repent or beg. Erik knows now that there's no amount of suffering that can be brought upon them with his own hand that will ever transcend his own.

But he can't focus on that, as much as he needs to. Everywhere, it's Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Captain America, death, death, _gone._ Erik can barely think, much less plot revenge. It's impossible to imagine that the two men that saved him from certain death were both - presumably, Erik hangs onto the word with embarrassing hope  - dead themselves. 

Erik rolls over on his small motel bed and yells into his pillow like the child he feels like. The child he isn't. He's eighteen, after all, he should be able to handle death. Gott, it's like anyone that ever means anything to him leaves. Mama, his little sister Ruth, Papa...even Magda, his childhood best friend, who might not even be dead, is still gone, and even if she's still alive she's not _here,_ which makes it terrible all the same. Erik wills himself not to cry. He shouldn't feel like this, he's a grown man. He's dealt with this before. He's always been alone, that aspect of his life he's accepted.

Then why does it hurt so much?

_"I'm going to get you home."  
_

Erik clamps his hands over his ears to block it out. He can't _deal_ with this right now, he's on a mission to avenge his mother's death for God's sake, there's no time for sentimentality -

 _"I'm not leaving a child, Bucky, not because he doesn't know what we stand for. You_ do _know what we stand for, right?"_

Erik grasps at the sheets when he remembers how Bucky grabbed Steve's hand, so confident that Steve wouldn't pull away. He's in the truck with the Commandos now, watching as Bucky leans his head on Steve's shoulder while Steve gapes at Erik manipulating a bullet, Bucky tracing circles in the simple fabric of the slacks Steve had changed into. No one even flinched, Erik remembers observing. No one cares that two men are doing this, even though it's outlawed and dirty - then there's the gentle kiss that the two shared out of the blue, Bucky's eyes sparkling with amusement when he sees Erik's scandalized look.

 _"You alright, kiddo?"_ Erik recalls him asking, laughing as Steve goes beet red. Erik knows what he was saying, now that he knows English. Back then, though, he just thought he was urging him to protest against it. Which of course he didn't. Erik thought it was amazing that they actually could do that freely. And he knew that he didn't want to judge anyone because what they were doing was deemed wrong - he knew from personal experience that eventually it would lead to nothing.

_"C'mon, Buck," he murmurs, "you're scaring him."_

Erik sits up, clenching his jaw, and goes to his travel bag. Inside there are three fake IDs, two passports, stolen money and banking information, case files and a journal for his findings. But underneath all of that there's one quarter that he'd kept since 1944. He finds it with his powers, more fine-tuned than they were back then.

 _E Pluribus Unum,_ he reads underneath a picture of an eagle. Erik sighs, his breath shaky with emotion. He looks at the quarter for a moment before he sends it straight at the picture of Schmidt he has on a cork-board with a shout of rage and hurt and all the other pent-up feelings he has, and it slices into Schmidt's ear. He curls his lip in disgust.

The next time he does it, it's seventeen years later with Schmidt's coin, and this time it hits him directly between the eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have officially hopped on the Stucky ship it's nice here
> 
> I decided to post this REALLY FRICKIN' EARLY because I'm afraid my power's going to go out any minute - there's an icicle that's almost bigger than ME hanging off my house...a five foot icicle guys what is this nature - and I wanted to get started on other things. I'm looking at my computer thinking _omg omg omg this seems so DESPERATE you shouldn't but you can barely see out your window there's so much snow_ so if this is actually desperate you can think that and I won't be offended because I'm thinking the exact same thing. 
> 
> Stay warm for those of you who are experiencing this too! Let's get through Icepocalypse together


End file.
